Finding Your Inspiration

Do you guys ever come to a point in your life & you feel like you've hit this brick wall.  Your creativity is gone & just sitting around and trying to come up with new ideas just isn't working?  As a blogger and general crafter, this tends to happen more than I'd like.  So I want to share MY personal ways to re-start that creative section in my brain.

This is SO so SO important.  I have had a few different notebooks & I currently have an ugly black & white composition notebook & I always keep my 2 favorite pens handy...a sharpie & a Pilot Acroball Pen (it actually changed my life).  I love being able to write & even draw ideas out that come to me.  I keep blog posts ideas in there, to-do lists, crafts that I'm currently working on....so I'm always looking at it & I can go back to look at, where-as if I just jot down a few words about an idea on my phone's memo pad....it kind of just stays on there until I remember it months down the road & can't even remember what "black stripes on gold" means nothing to me anymore.

 Creativity & inspiration is always around us. Especially through social media.  I follow some amazing people on Instagram, and I often see a picture in someone's feed that sparks an idea- so I screenshot it!  Whatever it is, or wherever it it- take a picture to save it for later.  But to keep it from getting lost- I have a secret pinboard where I upload these photos & add a caption with WHY it inspired or WHAT it inspired & I look at it ALL the time.

Whenever I am blog planning or needing inspiration, I make a conservative effort to stop any other distractions for "x" amount of time to look at my pinboard, or write down ideas, or browse blogs.  One thing I recently got hooked on is webinars & podcasts. ALT has had some amazing free online classes you can sign up for from various people on relatable topics that are 60 minutes and so I sit down (with my notebook) and listen and watch and write.  Elise Blaha has started a great podcast in where she interviews bloggers & I do the same thing. Take the time to feel inspired.

Going along with "making time for it", one of my favorite things to do when I'm in a creative rut is to get out.  Whether it's to spend time in nature, or at craft stores or even Target- getting out and looking at things in real life (as opposed to online) can spark creativity when you can hold an amazing product in your hand or see something beautiful.

To keep myself from screen-shoting and pinning a million different pictures, I stop and think- what is it about this "thing" that makes me want to save it? Is it...the color, the lettering, the way it's photographed? Think about it, write it (or caption it) so that you're not just filling your head up with things that you may never be able to pull a good idea from.